The Guggenheim of Bilbao wants another venue that fuses art and nature

Juan Ignacio Vidae, director of the museum, retakes a project that the crisis halted and seeks new locations in the Gernika area.

13 Mart 2018 Salı 05:31 - 41 reads.

The Guggenheim gives ten-year jumps. In 2008, when he had an open decade and had achieved what seemed impossible, transformation of decadent industrial Bilbao into an emerging and service, n deputy general, Jose Luis Bilbao announced that his institution had reserved 100 Million euros for creation of a Guggenheim 2 in an Old Colony house in town of Pedernales, Sukarrieta.

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The crisis paralyzed him but not dream of a new house to "guarantee sustainability of project to future," argue official sources of museum. The director of Pinacoteca Bilbao, Juan Ignacio Vidae, in person, has been put to work and has been personally involved in what y call a "discontinuous enlargement". Last February he visited some possible locations to resume project of a second Guggenheim for Bilbao environment.

Vidae inspected last month three of m, closed factory of Cutlery Dahlia, of 18,000 square meters; The factory of shipyards Murueta, still in active and located on foot of estuary of Gernika, and facilities of football field of Urbieta, all of m in area of Gernika, although y are not only possible emplacements. No one doubts that new museum would be in Bizkaia although it could move away from area of Gernika. What y do know is that new Guggenheim museum will be a complement to one built by Frank Gehry, and it would be a certain revolution in concept. They want to give a different experience to visitor, an experience in which art merges with natural environment.

"This is a first exploratory movement", y have insisted this Tuesday from museum Bilbao, but y are "consistent with strategic plan 2017-2020 of Pinacoteca approved last December". Then, however, it did not transcend detail of agreement to resume search. "It is very preliminary because it also requires institutional support and high consensus" and does not yet exist.

The institutions, Basque Government and Diputación of Bizkaia have ratified that this legislature that ends in 2019 will not face project. Maybe next. The plan has approval of Board of Trustees, whose members include Solomon Guggenheim Foundation based in New York. In fact, in 2009, n-President of that foundation, Richard Armstrong, assured when he was presented with project: "It is an exceptional opportunity to reinvent creative process."

Vidae is studying possible locations "to be prepared in case those who run institutions next term, retake agreement to finance new project. It is a matter of taking steps, going forward so that when time can come, we have all ahead of us, "have confirmed sources of museum.

In 2008 when first location for enlargement was presented, objective was to achieve a tourism plus and activity generation to fight precisely against economic slowdown that was being seen. The Colony House, an old BBK building, now Kutxabank, would have 5,000 square meters of exposure, and would serve to expand space of Abandoibarra. This place was embedded in reserve of Urdaibai, only biosphere reserve of Euskal Herria, recognized internationally by UNESCO in 1984.